smidey

totally disagree, what facts have you got to back this up? i would suggest that these markings would be more to do with mood, health or the food they are eating. just like some red zebs getting dark spots when they eat spirulina

the same water we drink 8)

i have crushed marble as a substrate & limestone rocks for decoration. I have only been here for less than a week & didn't test the ph when i filled the tanks so it may have raised it already.

what is the best way to increase the PH for my africans? I have moved out to the country & started my farming life. The water here is from the runoff from the large shed next to the house, my ph in my previous house in town was perfect. it was about 8 from the tap so i have never had any reason to change it. now its is 7, what is the best way to raise it?

sweet, great fish! thanks

are you sure that is a red empress? it doesn't have any of the black lines showing through, did it have them originally? this is a pic off the cichild forum species register which mine are the same as except they don't have any colour yet. mine are basically silver with vivid black markings.

just be careful of what substrate you use as africans dig & move the substrate alot. adults will move a quarter of my substrate in an hour when they are building a nest & they also are very quick swimming & will stir up a fine substrate when chasing each other while being aggressive. my Ph is about 7.9 - 8.0 & they thrive, live plants often don't do well in these conditions & if they do the fish will often destroy them anyway.

in that size tank i have 4 adult fryeri, 2 baenschi peacocks, 3 electric yellows, 2 red zebras, 2 cobalt blues, 8 red empress & 2 clown loaches. This stocking works fine & i have little or no aggression issues. These are mostly adult fish also. When i need to for a short time (2-3 weeks) i also put in juvenile fish (up to 15) when i need extra storage & i works well also. I have 1900LPH filtration on it so never had any water quality issues with that amount of filtration. You wont regret it if you change, these species provide brilliant colour at a fraction of marine cost & they are active as well. I have used aragonite to buffer the water along with limestone & with two cf1200's it will be set up well.

run both filters, i have my 200L heavily stocked with africans & clowns & never had any water quality issues with the canister running.

i have had one for over two years & would buy another tomorrow if i was in the market for another tank. The hoods are aluminium rather than plastic & i have not had any trouble with anything on it. They also have slots in the hood for canister piping. The filtration is OK but not brilliant, I run a CF1000 & the hood filter & the water is so clear it looks like the fish are floating in air. The cabinets are foil wrapped panels so are more water resistant than cabinets with PVC edge clashings. My cabinet still looks today like it did when i got it, i also have a aquaone setup that has the PVC clashed edges which have almost all swollen & it looks really tatty. They are certainly the best in their value range & I think they are better than aqua one units which cost alot more. The cost of them is low due to them being imported direct by the person selling on TM them rather than being sold through suppliers & pet stores.

nice, i have seen a common fish for the first time then.

Kitchens by Pat Gavin.

to win we need to somehow "kick start" the economy with a cash injection or something. we need to spend to create demand. how that happens i do not know. Just before xmas Aussie gave families $1K for every child they had (3 kids =$3K), $2K for married couples & $2K (something like that, may not be exactly right) to everyone & told them not to use it on bills but to spend it on whatever they wanted. Don't know the results but that must have created some demand & created some jobs.

there are real facts rather than just emotion that create these situations though. for example, the banks recently doubled the deposit required. That would cut most first time home buyers out of getting a mortgage, buying a house & in my case buying a new kitchen for it. that has an effect of considerably less demand for kitchens therefore less workers to produce them which creates redundacies & closures. those workers effected then don't have any disposable income & don't buy things they want which creates less demand in other production sectors. in my case, there are know 38 people who won't be doing things like having sky tv, playing golf, riding motorbikes or spending any money on any hobbies or luxuries as all funds & in most cases more will be required to pay for housing & food for their families. this effects the people in the industries that aren't neccesaties, sky installer, greenkeepers & bar attendants, motorcycle mechanic & salesmen won't have any work so they in turn go into the cycle of survival. after a long period of time the majority will be in this cycle ratherthan the minority.

My work, who employed 38 people before xmas went into liquidation on monday. The biggest kitchen manufacturer in whangarei, about 6 times larger than the next largest & 55 years trading gone. I am fine, planned to finish in 3 weeks to go dairy farming but there are several guys who have young families, others have recently got mortgages to. That will hit them really hard & i can't see things getting better for a while yet.

Metriaclima Albino Anyone seen one of these before? There is one at my LFS that was bought in by a customer as they didn't want it antmore. It is an adult, has the pink eyes but no other colouring at all. It is totally albino & has no coloring on the fins either. It basically looks like an albino red zebra. How common is this?

damn those are small, what type are they?

I just watched live on the net the Necropsy of great white shark that was caught in a net near Auckland airport. It was performed by Auckland Museum & was really interesting! It was 300Kg, 2M in length & was around 10 years old which is nearly breeding age.

isn't the whole of the south island 03 code? haha, play along! a mates phone number is one number off the local garage. One friday afternoon his phone rang & he answered it, "Hello". "Is this the Parua Bay garage?" the woman rudely asked. No he answered politely & she immediately slams the phone down in his ear. 10 seconds later, ring ring ring. He answers the phone "Parua Bay Garage". The rude lady asks, "Is my car ready?! It's Mrs Brown!" He quickly replies, "no, i'm sorry it's not. the mechanic is away & it won't be ready until monday." she immediately slams the phone down in his ear. This is a true story & i laugh out loud every time i think about it.

what an outstanding achievment, anyone got any idea of what that would cost to setup & run?

you are some what limited with a tank of this size what you could have in it if you arn't planning to get anything larger, certainly most fish will require a larger tank when they become adults. I started with a 30L, then moved onto an 80L then to a 200L as the fish grew from fry to adults. the smaller tanks, with the addition of a 130L tank are all now used as breeding/fry/grow out tanks & the 200L is for display of some of the adults. I do know someone that has a tank that size with africans, but what he does is sells them as the get bigger so basically always has juvies in it as he is not prepared to get anything bigger.

you'd be suprised how far animals will travel. my friends waterfall in the tangihua ranges half way between whangarei & dargaville had a seal in it, DOC thought i would have traveled 50km along stream, creaks & drains to get there. bigger with more grey sounds like mullet

white bait school don't they? Could also be mullet?

we started camping on wednesday & will be out there for around 3 weeks. the kiddies really enjoy seeing there "camping friends" again.

i just won the new iron maiden cd off the rock, score!